A B2B online store does not sell to just anyone who lands on the site. It sells to companies you know, at negotiated prices, by the case and the pallet, with an invoice and, for some of them, on credit terms. The buyer does not need to be convinced about the product: they know it, order it every week and want to be done quickly.
A small or mid-sized wholesaler typically takes orders by phone, email and messages, against price lists sent out as an Excel file. The sales reps retype the orders into the invoicing software, and the list is out of date at the first price rise.
Where WooCommerce stops and a portal begins
WooCommerce, the store that installs on top of WordPress, is a good choice for a wholesaler with a few customer groups, a catalogue in the hundreds or thousands of products and pricing rules that can be described simply. As a rule it costs less than a portal written from scratch.
It is not the right choice when prices, stock across several warehouses, credit limits and each customer’s contracts live in a large ERP (the software that runs the whole company) and have to be mirrored moment by moment. That calls for a portal built around the ERP, with a different budget.
Manually approved accounts, prices visible only after login
A visitor who is not logged in sees the catalogue without prices or sees nothing at all, whichever you choose. To buy, they request an account and fill in the company details; the name and address can be filled in automatically on the basis of the tax identification code (CUI), from the public service run by ANAF, Romania’s tax authority. The account stays pending until someone on your team approves it and places it in a customer group.
Manual approval is your filter: you keep out private individuals, curious competitors and companies outside the area you deliver to. Once approved, the customer sees their group’s prices, shown excluding VAT, with the tax calculated separately in the basket.
Price groups, minimum quantities and case multiples
Instead of a single price, each product has one for every customer group: small shops, resellers and distributors, for example. The rule can be a discount off the base list or fixed prices loaded from a file, which you export from your own software and upload when the list changes.
Quantities follow the real packaging. If a product is sold only by the case, the quantity field goes up a case at a time and does not accept values in between.
- Quantity tiers: a better price from a certain number of cases upwards.
- Packaging multiples: single unit, case, pallet, with the conversion shown next to the quantity field.
- Minimum order value: by customer group or by delivery zone, stated in the basket.
- Reserved products: items visible only to certain groups.
B2B online store with quick ordering from a table and credit terms
A customer who knows what they want does not open product pages. The quick order form is a table with the whole catalogue or with the products they usually buy: code, name, price, stock and a quantity field on every row. They fill in the quantities, click once and the whole table lands in the basket.
Payment on credit terms appears as a payment method only for the customers you approve. The order goes in without payment being taken, with the due date recorded on it. The store can refuse the method when the value of unpaid orders goes over a set limit, but the true balance remains the one in your accounting software.
- Upload from a file: a list of codes and quantities, pasted in or imported.
- Repeating an earlier order, and saved lists (the Monday order, the seasonal order).
- Documents in the account: orders, pro forma invoices and invoices to download.
Invoicing, stock and the order in which it is built
Invoices between companies in Romania go through e-Factura, the national e-invoicing system, and they are sent by your invoicing software, not by the store. Our job is to make sure the order data (company, tax identification code, products, VAT rates) reaches that software correctly, through its WooCommerce plugin or through its API, if it has one. Your accountant confirms the tax details. Stock travels in the opposite direction.
The work begins with the price list and the unwritten rules: who gets what discount, what is sold only by the pallet, who pays on credit terms. Next come the catalogue structure, the accounts and groups, quick ordering and the link to invoicing. Before inviting everyone, we run a trial period with a few long-standing customers, who carry on ordering by the usual route in parallel.
Whether the store is doing its job is easy to see: what share of orders come through it and how much time the reps still spend retyping orders. Some customers will carry on phoning, and the rep can place the order on their behalf.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell to private individuals from the same store as well?
It can be done, with list prices for the public and group prices for logged-in companies. It does complicate delivery and returns, though, because the rules for consumers differ from those between companies.
Can the store be connected to my stock management software?
It depends on the software. Some have ready-made plugins for WooCommerce, others offer an API, and others can only export and import files. We choose the option once we have seen what the software allows.
How much does a store like this cost?
The cost depends on the number of pricing rules, on the link to invoicing and on how far your ordering process departs from what the existing B2B extensions do. Rules that are few and clear are largely covered by extensions, without custom-written code.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.